SUSAN SCHWALB
Spatial Polyphonies:
New Metalpoint Drawings
cover: Polyphony IV, 2013, silverpoint, red gesso on paper on panel, 16 x 16 inches.
Collection of Patricia Grant and Michael Appelbaum.
SUSAN SCHWALB
Spatial Polyphonies:
New Metalpoint Drawings
October 2 – November 2, 2013
Essay by John Yau
Polyphony VII , 2013 (side view)
silver/gold/copperpoint, acrylic, blue and yellow gesso on paper on panel, 16 x 16 inches.
Toccata #57, 2012, tin/silverpoint, pencil, gray gesso on paper, 12 x 12 inches.
THE RECENT WORK OF SUSAN SCHWALB
I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea...
Emily Dickinson
From a letter to Louise and Frances Norcross,
November, 1882
John Yau, 2013
1.
For more than thirty-five years, Susan Schwalb has worked in silverpoint, an
unforgiving medium that can neither be erased nor corrected. She uses a metal
stylus to draw lines onto prepared wood panels and gessoed paper. She also
occasionally uses a woodworking tool to cut into the surface of the panels.
Beginning with the preparation of the surfaces, her process is incremental and
decisive. Although she started out drawing flowers, she soon pared her vocabulary
down to horizontal lines made of silver, gold, tin or copper, the color matching the
composition of the metalpoint.
In Schwalb’s work, each line releases a glow that can, at times, seem barely there
– even as it changes as it moves across the surface. Stacked on top of each other,
the differently colored lines become both geological strata and layers of light.
With remarkable economy, she has bonded the materiality of her medium – the
faint trace (which, in certain works, can have a barely-there presence), thin scar or
tactile groove running across the pristine surface –­ with the immateriality of light.
Toccata #46, 2013, gold/silver/copper/brass/pewter/aluminumpoint, colored pencil, graphite on clay-coated
paper, 14 x 14 inches.
In recent years, Schwalb seems to have gotten more delicate, rigorous and
adventuresome in her approach. In “Polyphony” (2012 – 2013), a series of square
panels, ranging from 16 x 16 inches to 30 x 30 inches, she compresses as many as
four palpable layers within a single composition. The series’ title, “Polyphony” is a
musical term (as are many of Schwalb’s titles), defined as a texture consisting of
two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody.
In Polyphony VI (2013), the four distinct layers (in reverse order, starting with the
bottom) consist of a luminous blue ground, two metalpoint grids of twelve and nine
squares respectively, and, finally, a square. All the squares are scrims defined by
faint horizontal lines.
Sequentially, it is possible to deduce that Schwalb began with the radiant blue
ground and superimposed a grid of twelve squares over it, filling the painting’s
square and transforming the solid blue bands between the drawn squares into a
skeletal framework. Over this grid she drew a grid whose nine squares equal the size
of those in the larger grid. Finally, in the center of the painting she superimposed a
simple square.
In the areas where three layers of squares overlap, I found myself focusing and
refocusing my attention, trying to distinguish where one square begins and the
others end. It was like looking at three translucent curtains hung in front of one
another. Like the other paintings in the series, Polyphony VI is a palimpsest of three
semi-transparent layers, a series of superimposed geometric textures. Rhythm and
interruption, repetition and difference, have been made to embrace.
Polyphony VI, 2013, silver/gold/copperpoint, blue gesso on paper on panel, 16 x 16 inches.
We don’t see Polyphony VI; we adjust to it. We don’t look at its finely worked,
layered surface; we examine it. For all of its restraint and rigor, Polyphony VI is an
intensely subjective painting that gains its eloquent expressiveness through selfdiscipline and structure, opening up a realm of contemplation and reflection.
2.
It seems to me that Schwalb’s process is indistinguishable from time passing, and
she knows it. I would also advance that her lines are a way of consciously slowing
down time, making it into a palpable thing that can be closely scrutinized. This is
why the lines are individual, why she draws or incises each one by hand rather than
relegating the task to a machine. Her works are meticulous out of necessity. Make
no mistake about it. They have to be made this way because Schwalb knows she
cannot stop time, that she can only structure its passing.
At the same time, Schwalb recognizes that no matter how much control she is able
to exert on her work, both she and her art are material things vulnerable to time’s
vicissitudes. By folding this consciousness into her work, Schwalb is able to bestow
upon it an emotional resonance that distinguishes her project from those we
associate with Minimalism and reductive art. Her work is not static and makes no
claim to being timeless. Rather, her work is about passage on many different levels,
the myriad distinctions and differences that constantly reveal themselves in the
face of constant change. Her work underscores her belief that nothing – including
the seemingly simple act of drawing a line – is mundane, and that all activities are
inextricable from time.
Here it might be useful to look again at Schwalb’s work in terms of the solitude of
its implementation. It is a daily ritual in which an artist prepares a surface that will
Polyphony I, 2013, silver/gold/copperpoint, black gesso on museum board on panel, 30 x 30 inches.
Interlunar Vibrations XXIX, 2013, silverpoint, white gesso on panel, 16 x 16 inches.
Interlunar Vibrations XXV, 2012, gold/silver/tin/aluminumpoint, acrylic, black gesso on panel, 16 x 16 inches.
Intermezzo, IV, 2013 (side view), silverpoint, colored pencil, gesso on panel, 6 x 6 inches.
left: Intermezzo II, 2013, silver/goldpoint, colored pencil, gesso on panel,
right: Intermezzo III, 2013, silver/copper/goldpoint, colored pencil, gesso
6 x 6 inches.
on panel, 6 x 6 inches.
be simultaneously brimming with color and blank. The surface is pristine, the color
saturated. If it is black, it might evoke a starless night sky, the universe before life
began. The lines form a horizon, but not necessarily one we would encounter on
earth. Here I am thinking of the aptly titled series, Interlunar Vibrations. We are
looking at lines of light implying a horizon, but one that hardly seems earthly.
Once the surface is prepared – and this may take days or even weeks – Schwalb
slowly and methodically marks its surface. Sitting at a table – in my mind, she is
bent over it, like a scholar – holding a T-square and a stylus with a point of silver,
gold or some other metal, she seems intent on registering the ineffable, measuring
the little bit of infinity she inhabits.
The ritual consists of adding one line to another. The distance between the lines is
as important as the lines themselves. Eventually, a swath of lines, each a different
color, forms to become a constantly changing texture, a subdued shimmer.
If Schwalb switches her metalpoint from silver to gold, or from copper to tin, the
differences become more pronounced, but never overtly dramatic. While the ritual
does not vary in any significant way, each work attains a distinct character. This
goes against the grain of ritual, which is supposed to produce the same results time
after time. But replication is not what Schwalb is after. In some cases, especially
when she works in a series, the results might be seen as members of the same
family, but you would never mistake one member for another.
3.
Recently, Schwalb has literally and metaphorically expanded the parameters of
her work with two series, Toccata and Intermezzo (both 2013). Both series are done
Toccata #52, 2012, copper/gold/tin/aluminum/pewter/silverpoint, graphite, colored pencil, gesso on paper,
9 x 9 inches.
on the same format – a 6 x 6-inch panel that is 1½ inches thick. The works, which
are mounted on the wall, jut forward. Their modest size invites viewers to move
closer and scrutinize them, something they share with the artist’s two-dimensional
works. The difference is that Schwalb has drawn and incised lines on the front of the
box’s immaculate, milky white surface, as well as on the two flanking sides. Are they
drawings? Paintings? Or reliefs? In some way, they are all three.
Toccata is a musical term derived from the Italian toccare, “to touch.” In Toccata
IV, Schwalb used silver, gold, aluminum, copperpoint and pencil to incise the lines,
which go across the entire surface and continue onto the flanking sides on the left
and right. Despite its small size, we obviously cannot see all three incised sides of
the box at once. As we move back and forth to view the piece in its entirety, the
three evenly spaced clusters of lines evoke a musical instrument for the eyes, rather
than the hands. It is as if Schwalb is suggesting that Toccata IV can be played
by sight, rather than by touch. By using the woodworking tool to make physical
grooves in the box’s surface, she collapses together sight and touch, underscoring
that our senses are connected – that, for her, art should not be purely optical.
In Intermezzo, Schwalb goes a step further, doing something uncharacteristic:
instead of horizontals, she incises diagonal lines across the box’s front surface as
well as the left and right flanking sides, sometimes at sharp angles to each other.
Moving around the box affords us different views and configurations. They literally
shift – sometimes radically – as we move from side to side.
Also a musical term, “Intermezzo” is a short instrumental movement connecting
two scenes of an opera. We might see one of Schwalb’s Intermezzo pieces as
connecting two things together, but what those things are eludes identification.
Each “Intermezzo” comes across as self-sufficient and mysterious, an object we can
never fully grasp because it changes as we move around it.
According to astrophysicists, there seems to be a series of interconnected,
underlying structures governing the universe, but we have only gained very small
glimpses of them. The Intermezzo pieces are maps of small bits of infinity, which can
change in ways both logical and unimaginable. At one point – and for no rational
reason – it occurred to me that an Intermezzo box is not only a bridge between an
unknown past and an unforeseeable future, but it is also a mystical object whose
story we will never know. Art that can transport the viewer to such a place of
possibility is doing something special.
John Yau is a distinguished art critic, essayist, curator, poet, fiction writer, and
publisher. His reviews have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, Art News,
Bookforum, and the Los Angeles Times. He was the Arts Editor for the
Brooklyn Rail (2006 – 2011). In January 2012 he started the online magazine,
Hyperallergic Weekend, with three other writers.
Toccata #54, 2012, copper/gold/silver/aluminum/tin/pewterpoint, graphite, blue gesso on paper, 12 x 12 inches.
CHRONOLOGY
1944 Born in New York, NY
1965 BFA Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
FELLOWSHIP/GRANTS
2010,’07,’92,’73 The Virginia Center for the Creative
Arts, Sweet Briar, VA
1994 Artist-in-Residence, Mishkenot Sha’ananim,
Jerusalem, Israel
Artist-in Residence, Tel Aviv Artists’ Studios, Tel
Aviv, Israel
1991 Massachusetts Arts Lottery Grant
1989,’85,’77 Exhibitions Grant, Committee for the
Visual Arts, Inc.– Artists Space, New York, NY
1989,’75,’74 The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH
1981 Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, NY
1980 International Communications Agency Travel
Grant, Copenhagen, Denmark
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013 Spatial Polyphonies: New Metalpoint Drawings,
Garvey Simon Art Access, New York, NY
2011 Music of Silence: Recent Metalpoint Paintings,
K. Imperial Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2011 A Gathering Quiet, Galerie Mourlot, New York, NY
2009 Interior Voyages: Recent Silverpoint Paintings,
Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ
2008 Music of Silence: Recent Metalpoint Paintings
and Drawings, Galerie Mourlot, New York, NY
2006 Metalpoint Paintings, Page Bond Gallery,
Richmond, VA
Atmospheric Disturbances, Winfisky Gallery,
Salem State College, Salem, MA
Atmospheric Disturbances, Simon Gallery,
Morristown, NJ
2005 Shards of Memory: Recent Metalpoint
Paintings, Solomon Fine Art, Seattle, WA
Drawn in Metal, Robert Steele Gallery, New
York, NY
2004 Red Mesa, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2003 Afterimage: Recent Metalpoint Paintings and
Drawings, Robert Steele Gallery, New York, NY
Recent Metalpoint Paintings and Drawings,
Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ
2002 Let There Be Light, Adair Margo Gallery, El
Paso, TX
Palimpsest: Recent Metalpoint Paintings,
Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2001 Palimpsest: Recent Metalpoint Paintings,
Miyako Yoshinaga Art Prospects, New York, NY
1999 Moments of Resonance: Recent Metalpoint
Drawings and Paintings, Andrea Marquit Fine
Arts, Boston, MA
Improvisations on Outer Space: Recent
Metallic Works on Paper, Birke Art Gallery,
Marshall University, Huntington, WV
1997 Improvisations on Outer Space, Arthur B.
Mazmanian Art Gallery, Framingham State
College, Framingham, MA
1996 Galaxies & Other Matter: Recent Metallic
Paintings, Andrea Marquit Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Intervals: Silverpoint Paintings, Watson Gallery,
Wheaton College, Norton, MA
1994 Susan Schwalb: Silverpoint Drawings 1986-1994,
American Cultural Center, Jerusalem, Israel
Intervals: Silverpoint Paintings, Andrea Marquit
Fine Arts, Boston, MA
1992-94 The Creation Series, (tour: May Museum of
Judaica, Lawrence, NY; Chase/Freedman
Gallery, Greater Hartford JCC, West Hartford,
CT; Robert I. Kahn Gallery, Congregation
Emanu El, Houston, TX), B’nai B’rith Klutznick
National Jewish Museum, Washington, DC
1990 The Creation Series: 15 Years of Silverpoint,
Yeshiva University Museum, New York, NY
1989 Susan Schwalb: Silverpoint Drawings, Brad
Cooper Gallery, Tampa, FL
Susan Schwalb: Silverpoint Drawings, SOHO 20
Gallery, Invitational Space, New York, NY
1986 Susan Schwalb: Large-Scale Silverpoint
Drawings, Saint Peter’s Church, New York, NY
1985 Silverpoint Drawings, SOHO 20 Gallery,
Invitational Space, New York, NY
Susan Schwalb: Silverpoint Drawings, Simmons
College, Boston, MA
1983 Silverpoint Drawings 1978-1982, U.S. Embassy
Exhibition Program, sponsored by the United
States Information Agency, The American
Center in Belgrade, Banja Luka, and
Skopje, Yugoslavia
1978 Orchid Series: Gold and Silverpoint Drawings,
Loyola University, Chicago, IL
1977 Orchid Series: Gold and Silverpoint Drawings,
Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
Orchid Series: Gold and Silverpoint Drawings,
Douglass College, New Brunswick, NJ
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Lines of Liminality: Susan Schwalb and Clifford
Smith, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Straight Lines in Five Directions: Kate Carr,
Susie Rosmarin, Susan Schwalb, James Siena,
Dan Walsh, Garvey Simon Art Access, New
York, NY
Working It Out, The Painting Center, New York, NY
Inside Out: Selections from the Kentler Flat
Files, Kentler International Drawing Space,
Brooklyn, NY
Paperwork, Telfair Museum, Savannah, GA
2012 New Prints 2011/2012 Benefit Exhibition & Silent
Auction, International Print Center New York, NY
New Prints 2012/Summer, Selected by Shahzia
Sikander, International Print Center New York, NY
Uncovered: Prints, Selected from the
Kentler Flatfiles, Curator: Sallie Mize, Kentler
International Drawing Space, Brooklyn, NY
2011 Group Silverpoint Exhibition, Tinney
Contemporary Art, Nashville, TN
Sofia International Paper Art Biennial 2011,
curated by Thalia Vrachopoulos, Sofia, Bulgaria
Drawings for the New Century, Minneapolis
Museum of Art, MN
2010 Recent Work by Gallery Artists, Etherington
Fine Art, Marfa, TX
Luminous Lines: Contemporary Drawings in
Metalpoint, Scripps College, Claremont, CA
Modern Drawings: Tracing 100 Years,
Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
2009
2008
2007
2006
The Primacy of Paper: Recent Works from the
Collection, RISD Museum of Art, Providence, RI
Group Exhibition: Preview 2010, Blank Space
Gallery, New York, NY
Some Things the World Gave: Jan Lhormer and
Susan Schwalb, Simmons College Boston, MA
The Luster of Silver, Evansville Museum of Arts
and Sciences, Evansville, IN
Re-Inventing Silverpoint: An Ancient Technique
for the 21st Century (tour: Cummings Arts
Center, Connecticut College, New London,
CT), Kentler International Drawing Space,
Brooklyn, NY
Artists and Books, The Art Complex Museum,
Duxbury, MA
Equilibrium: Susan Schwalb & Nan Tull,
Soprafina Gallery, Boston MA
No Chromophobia, OK Harris Gallery, New
York, NY
Winter Group Show, Galerie Mourlot, Los
Angeles, CA
Control/Chance: Susan Schwalb, Valerie
Constantino & Rainer Gross, Gráficas Gallery,
Tucson, AZ
Contemporary Metalpoint Drawing, Art
Students League, New York, NY
Selections from the Kentler Flatfiles, Brooklyn
Academy of Music, NY
In Residence: Artists and the MacDowell
Colony Experience, Thorne-Sagendorph Art
Gallery, Keene College, Keene, NH (tour:
The Art Gallery, University of New Hampshire,
Durham, NH
Abstraction Updated: Deborah Muirhead,
Susan Schwalb & Suzanne Volmer, G.A.S.P.
Gallery Artists Studio Projects, Brookline, MA
Chance and Necessity, Kentler International
Drawings Space, Brooklyn, NY
Black and Red, All Over, Michele Mosko Fine
Art, Denver, CO
Figure/Ground, Kentler International Drawing
Space, Brooklyn, NY
Never Done: Works by Women Artists from the
Puzzuoli Miller Collection, Huntington Museum
of Art, Huntington, WV
Words to Live By, Solomon Fine Art, Seattle, WA
From Sea to Shining Sea, District of Columbia
Art Center, Washington DC
The Luster of Silver: Contemporary Metalpoint
Drawings, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
Boundaries: Book Arts Between the Traditional
and the Experimental, Erie Art Museum, PA
The Square, The Temporary Museum of
Painting, Brooklyn, NY
2005 New England/New York New Talent,
Hampden Gallery, U. Mass/Amherst, MA
2004 Drawing Show, Robert Steele Gallery, New
York, NY
National Drawing Invitational, Arkansas Arts
Center, Little Rock, AR
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts
Museums of San Francisco, CA
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England
Athenaeum Music and Arts Library, La Jolla, CA
B’nai B’rith Klutznick National Jewish Museum,
Washington, DC
The British Museum, London, England
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
Boston Public Library, Boston, MA
Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA
Davis Museum and Cultural Center, Wellesley
College, Wellesley, MA
Evansville Museum of Art and Science, Evansville, IN
The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
The Houghton Library, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
Germany
The Library of Congress, Washington, DC
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
Museum of Art/Rhode Island School of Design,
Providence, RI
Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis, MO
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
The Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade, Serbia
The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, NY
The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
The National Museum of Women in the Arts,
Washington DC
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum,
New York, NY
The Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
The Old Jail Art Center, Albany, TX
The Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
Simmons College, Boston, MA
Telfair Art Museum, Savannah, GA
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North
Carolina at Greensboro
Wesleyan University, Davison Art Center,
Middletown, CT
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT
Yeshiva University Museum, New York, NY
Published in conjunction with the exhibition Susan Schwalb: Spatial Polyphonies, Garvey|Simon Art Access, New York, October 2 - November 2, 2013.
Catalog © 2013 Garvey Simon Art Access
Essay © 2013 John Yau
Works of art © 2012-13 Susan Schwalb
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